


Of The Essence

by tiddlypom



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiddlypom/pseuds/tiddlypom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas and the TARDIS unite when an unforeseen foe is laid before them</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of The Essence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdyostrich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdyostrich/gifts).



> For my wonderful Sofia, on her birthday <3

The morning stars had long faded in the sky when he felt her. And she hit him like a freight train, her essence, her… Grace? Yes, it was certainly Grace that Castiel felt, but it also wasn’t. She felt different, like the taste of chocolate after you’ve cleaned your teeth; familiar but not quite as you remember it.  
  
His eyes scanned the shallow crowd of people opening stalls for the market, and then along the red-stone street behind. Curious and wary, he shut his eyes, trying to feel for her, Grace reaching for Grace. With open eyes, he began to walk in what he hoped was the right direction, feeling his way forward like a grasshopper quivering its antennae along a leaf.  
  
He stopped abruptly next to one of the many bicycle posts lining the street, and fixed his sight upon a wild-haired woman sitting alone outside a café. She met his gaze and tilted her head slightly, their eyes locking in an almost animalistic way, aggressive, and for a moment staring into her nearly-black eyes, Cas thought he had a new, most terrifying breed of demon on his hands.  
  
But then, her lips stretched into such a wide, genuine smile that Cas couldn’t help but be taken aback by the contrast. She glanced sideways and beckoned for him to sit with her, and against all logic, he did.  
  
How long their staring contest went on for, he couldn’t say. An angel but not an angel; how could that be? He couldn’t fathom it out. So eventually, without breaking eye contact, he said, “what are you?”   
  
And he was startled to see her mouth his question along with him, as though she’d known exactly what he was going to say before he said it. She smiled at his surprised expression and he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but before he could reach any conclusions, she suddenly looked a mixture between confused and startled, and replied, “it’s a two pronged spear used to drag unwilling souls into Hell.”  
  
Cas frowned, unsure how to respond to her seemingly random statement and bemused expression with it. “Do you understand me?” he replied cautiously.  
  
The woman blinked a few times before saying, “of course, sorry, I’m getting my time frames muddled, you haven’t asked that yet.”  
  
She cleared her throat, leaving a pause just long enough to further confuse him, before continuing, “I’m a Type 40 TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space,” she counted off the words on her fingers as she said them, “but I suppose that doesn’t mean much to you. You can call me Sexy.”  
  
Cas found her style of speech markedly peculiar; the tone was broken and disjointed, as though her thoughts were swinging on a pendulum. He couldn’t make heads or tails of her, so, weighing up the risks, he did a millisecond sweep of the area to find they were indeed alone, and relaxed, fairly confident he could take her on if the time came. He needed answers.   
  
“Pleased to meet you Sexy,” he held out his hand confidently, feeling as though Dean would’ve had the perfect remark to make on her name, “what can I do for you?” His people skills weren’t half bad today.   
  
She stared at his hand for a moment, as though not sure what to do with it, when a spark of realisation hit her and she shook it gently. She had the same social skills as an angel, it would seem.    
  
“Oh no Castiel, it is what I can do for you,” she spoke more fluidly now, as though she’d practised this speech a few times, “you see, I come from a another world, one that is all too soon going to collide with this one, in a manner so catastrophic, that God himself will be left weeping and perished... And Time is not on our side.”  
  
It seemed a bit melodramatic, but it certainly caught his attention. He leaned in closer, more intrigued than ever.  
  
“I believe you’ve met both God and Death, haven’t you?” she continued.    
  
“Yes,” he wondered where this could possibly be going.  
  
“There is another in the triumvirate, you are yet to meet him, called Time. Oh, you’re going to need a little history lesson for this,” she paused collecting her thoughts, “how much of the Beginning do you know about?”  
  
“In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God…” he recited dully, of course he knew about the Beginning.  
  
“Yes, yes that much is true, but you surely must know shortly after that, there was Death and there was Time, and they too were servants of God. It doesn’t matter so much when, time’s pretty irrelevant considering the matter of our talk, but God created Gallifrey; a planet, much like Earth, with a diverse and curious people. But they had a distinct difference, which subverted their destinies from Earth’s unrecognisably. They had a certain amount control over Time and over Death.”   
  
Stunned silence. What she was saying was completely and utterly beyond his belief. Sapient planets other than Earth? Made by God? Impossible. And yet, there was something about her that made him inclined to believe her. Perhaps it was the intense look in her dark eyes, or the way she was sporadically lacing and re-lacing her fingers around one another, but he believed what she was saying. Which in itself was worrying. This revelation alone sent so many questions throwing themselves at his consciousness, he couldn’t begin to organise his thoughts into coherent speech. His whole universe was upside down.   
  
He hardly noticed when a waiter came along; Sexy ordered for him in a fluid Dutch, he cared not what. But her sudden change of language caught his attention, and he realised she’d previously been speaking Enochian. How could that be?  
  
Shutting his eyes, Cas leaned his elbows against the table and massaged his temples. The only way he could possibly digest this, he decided, was to hear more. Either that or it would make even less sense. Whatever.  
  
“Continue,” was the word he managed to drag from his lips.  
  
“They were called the Time Lords,” she went on as though there had been no interruption, “and you should have seen them in their day. My, they were glorious…” She trailed off, staring wistfully over Cas’ head, the first time she’d not been staring at him since he’d sat down. “And then they all died,” she deadpanned, with a hint of what Cas thought was bitterness in her tone, “all but one. In the Time War, when Time rebelled against God. It has a surprising amount of similarities to your Apocalypse actually. You had Lucifer, we had Davros.”  
  
Cas raised a questioning eyebrow at the unfamiliar name.  
  
“Oh Davros was Time’s catalyst for the war,” she hurriedly explained, “just a playing piece, albeit an important one. Anyway, you had Demons, we had Daleks, same story, different characters. But in the Time War, both sides crashed and burned and there’s nothing left but myself and the Last Time Lord.”   
  
“Wait, so you’re not a Time Lord?” Cas’ brows furrowed, he thought he’d actually begun to make sense of this chaos.   
  
She laughed, “Me? A Time Lord? I’m a TARDIS, I told you. I was to Gallifrey, what you are to Earth.”   
  
He hardly dared to ask, “an angel?”  
  
“In a wibbly wobbly kind of way; yes.”   
  
As she said this last statement, her eyes began to glow. Golden, but not like Azazel’s; lighter, like vapour and froth and bubbles. Cas saw her essence, her Grace, and she was beautiful. Any doubts he’d had about what she was saying vanished. Doubt, replaced by determination.  
  
“So what happened to Time?”   
  
“He was sealed in a Time Lock, like Lucifer’s Cage I suppose, put there by the Last Time Lord, along with the whole of the Time War.”  
  
Now thinking like a soldier, all confusion banished, he questioned, “was sealed?”  
  
“That is the right tense isn’t it?” she said uncertainly, “yes, the Time Lock has been breached. Time is free, and the Last Time Lord, The Doctor, has vanished off the face of the universe.”  
  
“You think Time has him?”  
  
“I know he does,” she asserted, and before Cas could question she elaborated, “perks of being a TARDIS. Plus, what would be the first thing you’d do in his situation?”  
  
“Revenge,” Cas knew at once.  
  
Their order arrived, a fancy-looking mint tea, which a now more level-headed Cas thanked the waiter for in Dutch. He took a sip, and pleasant though it was, he couldn’t help but think of Dean’s disapproving face if he could see him drinking herbal tea, of all things. Cas chuckled at the thought, and ignored his drink for the moment, returning to the matter at hand.  
  
“So we need to find The Doctor,” he said, it was a statement not a question.  
  
“We?” she replied, a shade of hope in her eyes.  
  
“That is why we’re talking isn’t it?”  
  
“Thank you,” she flashed him another of her brilliant grins, and Cas couldn’t help but smile back.  
  
Still beaming he said, “so where do we start?”  
  
“We need some facts digging up,” she intensified her gaze further, if that was possible.  
  
This time, Cas’ smile was wry as he replied, “I’ve got your man.”  
  
He smoothly reached out his hand to touch hers across the table and they dematerialised in an instant.


End file.
